Get ready to watch Pat Nurse smoking and driving!
Monday, February 10, 2014 at 17:32 Forest has had several requests in recent weeks for smokers who smoke in their car with (or without) children.
The requests have come from television and radio programmes.
We've passed them on via Facebook and Twitter, and contacted people we know. With little success.
If you do smoke in your car with children you probably don't want to broadcast the fact on air. In the current climate you might get lynched.
And if you smoke in your car without children, why bother
Anyway, following a request from BBC News on Friday, Pat Nurse stepped forward and she was filmed on Saturday for the Six and Ten O'Clock News programmes tonight.
What I didn't know when I put her name forward is that Pat has only just recovered from a broken leg.
Here's her description of filming and what she said:
BBC News came, filmed and stayed two hours. They interviewed me at home and as I drove my son's car which I find easiest to drive.
He's a non smoker and said he didn't mind at all if I smoked in it. I can smoke and concentrate while driving but ask me to talk and drive and my concentration is gone. I stalled a few times, bump started, and forgot how to reverse.
The best part of the day, however, was finding out that I can drive with my recovering broken leg and it's the first time I've been off crutches since December 4.
(I wasn't smoking when I had my accident. I tripped while teaching, and then crashed into a whiteboard in front of a class of students.)
The interviewer asked me if I was a member of Forest. I said I was just an ordinary consumer but I supported Forest because it was the only organisation that echoed the consumer's voice and certainly far more accurately than anti-smoker organisations that claim to speak for us.
They wanted my smoking daughter and grandkids to be here while filming took place but I didn't want to expose her or the grandchildren in a national report by a broadcaster I don't trust because it is not known for impartiality on this issue.
My message to government is leave us alone. We've had enough. The vast majority of people are considerate and only a tiny minority of people smoke with kids in cars these days.
Parenting and culture is changing which means that smoking in cars will be gone naturally within this generation. The government doesn't need to make a law to stop that which isn't happening and is dying out.
Education is always the best way forward. Government should be pleased that our culture is changing without the need of heavy handed laws in knee jerk response to propaganda.
The vote on smoking in cars appears to have been delayed by an hour or two but we should get the result tonight.
In the meantime watch Pat smoking (while driving) on tonight's BBC News!
Update: OK, they didn't show her driving, merely smoking in her own home. And she got, oh, 15 seconds.
But, as I always say, better to be involved than not.
Reader Comments (12)
Hah - perhaps it was because my driving was so bad. I expected a 12 second slot between two health professionals saying how evil people like me are so the BBC has indeed stayed true to its usual biased form.
What I didn't tell you was that the reporter who came put her cards on the table the minute she arrived and told me she was an anti-smoker who hated everything about smoking. The cameraman loved his donuts and said he would shoot anyone who came within an inch of taking them from him.
I told him if the car ban comes in, then he better get armed and ready. It won't be long.
Watching the HOC 'debate' on smoking in cars with children is very enlightening ... it shows exactly what's wrong with this country. MP after MP spouting utter garbage and falling over themselves to bring in more regulations ... and they will bring them in!
Next will be no smoking in ALL cars, then no smoking in your homes if you have children ... quickly followed by no smoking in ALL homes. Yes, your home ... it's coming.
Some words of advice if they try to fine you ... deny everything! Don't make it easy for them ... try it, without your 'confession' it ain't so easy for them!
For many, the current proposed ban on smoking in cars with children will be the final straw,the red line ,The Rubicon.
Time now for the rule book to be burned.
The chat is over,the blogging pointless,all reason and polite debate
useless,.
If politicians and health experts wish to treat us as dogs and vermin
then that is just how we will defend ourselves,no rules,no guidelines,no conventions,no BBC question times,no more politeness.
Reminder for "Tory" Talkers, complete gang of Quislings and I
supported them fo 45 years.
Shock! Horror! MP's voted for the smoking ban in cars with children. Next up ... Plain Packaging :)
High time that Forest realised that the tide has turned and that having someone who regularly boasts that they started smoking under 10 years of age and is happy smoking around children as a spokesman is not a great idea. Forest needs to get a lot less angry and far more measured and reasoned in its media appearances. It should not simply oppose all anti-smoking measures as a kneejerk instinct, some are necessary to protect the health of children. Then it might earn more respect from both politicians and the public.
I don't boast. I don't wear it as a badge of honour. It's a fact of my generation of smoker. I also use it to prove that what your sort say about "caring" for "the children" is tosh. You're happy to be abusive in later life to those you can't save as kids. What a bloody hypocrite you are and that's what I aim to expose as well as the scientific junk you spout that never quite matches other people's experience and reality.
What I do when my kids and grandkids are present is none of your business but they'd have plenty to say to an arsehole like you if you dared to accuse me of child abuse in their company.
Who the hell do you think you are. Get a life and keep out of other people's. We don't need a nameless, faceless moron teaching our children how to hate and fear.
... and it was "politicians" who were the ones happy to take the tobacco tax from my generation of children's pocket money without implementing any regulations to stop them buying cigarettes or advertising them everywhere.
Today's politicians have a duty to stop the deliberate and malicious stigmatisation and marginalisation programme of former child smokers who don't trust the modern anti-smoker industry and would like more impartial research done on what might happen if they suddenly quit after a lifetime.
The only study that I've seen suggests most lifelong smokers die within 7 years of quitting and many of us can testify that anecdotal evidence supports that. Until I know the truth, I am not buying your industry's brand of bullshit which has a political ideological and not a health driven agenda and undoubtedly dodgy motives.
It's most inconvenient that people can actually think for themselves isn't it.
Borderline Nutcase!
My life echo’s Pats. I grew up in the fifties and both my parents smoked around me all through my formative years and into adulthood. I won a schools cross-country championship at 16 and when 18 in the army (RAOC) I won a best at PT in my platoon, where we had to do all kinds of sports.
My parents smoking didn’t appear to hurt my development. The reason for this is quite simple. So called SHS does no harm at all it is a nightmare conjured up by hateful mindless zealots like yourself, who are hell bent on destroying our lives at all costs.
So, what’s in SHS eh? Well about 6% is made up of miniscule amounts of the 4,000 chemicals thought to exist in tobacco, although they are virtually beyond our ability to measure that small – 4% is made up of carbon monoxide and a massive 90% is nothing more than water vapor!
Pats voice is one that is rarely heard in the public domain and half-wits like you would like to keep that way. We rarely are asked for our opinions because the zealots don’t like any form of dissent…whether that consists of a difference of opinion or a direct challenge to their junk science financed by the tax payer.
With respect to Simon Clark’s appearances – although he can speak for himself – he has always been unfailingly polite; many here would wish he’d be more aggressive. He has always given his interviews in a measured and calm way and has spoken with eloquence.
Still if you can prove me wrong then I would like to see your evidence.
In the meantime why not let me send you a one way ticket back to Chumpsville!
Dennis - I was one of the best athletes at school. That's what smoking and my parents smoking did to me.
They said I could have been an Olympic runner but I never wanted to be and I lost interest in sports in my later teens. Suddenly boys, life, living and having fun was more important than wet and cold training fields.
Thanks Pat for your welcome! I can assure you that I am not a member of the "anti-smoker industry" as such. Although I support the ban on smoking in cars with children, measures on proxy purchasing, vending machines and the Point of Sale Display ban, I am not in favour on bans in homes or for lone adults smoking in vehicles. I also have some concerns about plain packaging for which the current evidence appears rather flimsy. I merely wanted to add some balanced remarks to an increasingly polarised debate. My comments were not intended to hurt you on a personal level.
My broader point is that the politics of smoking have changed immeasurably in the past two years due to the advent and commercialisation of e-cigarettes. Many MPs who two years ago would have been likely to support the arguments of the tobacco industry are now shying away from defending traditional tobacco products as there is a reduced harm alternative to tobacco smoking. As a result only a few diehards are prepared to go out on a limb to oppose tobacco control measures with most Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs expressing support for electronic cigarettes and a general disdain for anything tobacco-related. Obviously, many on the Labour side continue to align themselves with the public health lobby who believe anything that looks like smoking is beyond the pale even if it is far less harmful.
Like it or not, tobacco smoking is likely to be regulated out of existence in the coming decade at least on a legal level. If Forest wishes to win some respect from opinion formers they would be far better off moving their focus to making the case for electronic cigarettes which would demonstrate that they support reduced harm solutions. Simon is certainly a committed spokesman and works hard for Forest, but it must be very depressing constantly fighting losing battles. Why not start to focus on the fights that can be won?
Oh - so you're a vaper? Same cloth, different colour. Vapers are not our friends. They need to bash us to save themselves but they'll end up only having two sets of enemies.
If you think tobacco control won't promote rubbish about ecigs to denormalise you then you're mistaken. I read the other day that when you smoke an ecig you inhale metal. Not for me thanks. I prefer organic.
You should wake up and stop being so sanctimonious in supporting the E Cig industry which is no different in its treatment of legitimate adult tobacco consumers than tobacco control. You want to save ecigs? Then help save us first because that way you will then save yourself next.
Forest is for tobacco consumers. You've got Ecca.
If Forest carries out any new campaign it should be to stop the forced marginalisation and stigmatisation of yesterday's children whose only crime is that they smoke, they're not dead, and their children and grandchildren are perfectly healthy three generations on.
I'm with Pat all the way - similar history and similar disbelief of all anti-smoking propaganda. Borderline seems to be saying: you're out of fashion, so you're on a loser wicket. Tough. We still think what we think, regardless.