It's official: food really is the new tobacco

Don't say you weren't warned.

A decade ago I was invited to give a speech at ISOS - the Independent Seminar on the Open Society - a one-day conference for sixth-form students organised three times a year by the Adam Smith Institute.

I was asked to not talk exclusively about smoking (can't imagine why!) so I took a broader view and demonstrated how the arguments and tactics used against tobacco were slowly but surely being used to target alcohol and food.

In April 2008 an edited version of that speech was published by The Free Society. It began:

More than 30,000 lives are being lost each year because of weight-related diseases … children as young as three are showing signs of obesity which will condemn them to a life of ill health … researchers claim that Britain is ‘heading for an epidemic of obesity’ because of poor diets and sedentary lifestyles … it has been estimated the cost of obesity to the National Health Service at £500 million a year.

Sound familiar? It should do. For years we have been told that 120,000 Brits die each year from ‘smoking-related diseases’; in England alone, 1,000 people a day are admitted to hospital with a smoking-related disease; smoking costs the NHS £1.75 billion a year; smokers should ‘quit or die’, blah, blah, blah.

Few would deny there are health risks associated with smoking. However, to suggest that smoking automatically leads to an early grave is absurd. It’s just one reason why the health police appear increasingly foolish on this and other issues.

Nevertheless, the same exaggerated tactics that have been used to tackle smoking are now being used to target our eating habits. Incredibly, we are told that one fifth of Britain’s population will be clinically obese within the next ten to 15 years and by 2040 half the population will be ‘superfat’ and in danger of dying early.

The problem with these outlandish claims is that they are being used as an excuse for restricting freedom of choice through social engineering and censorship.

See The politics of health: is food the new tobacco?

Today it's reported that 'Food should be regulated like tobacco, say campaigners' (BBC News).

It includes comments by Luke Upchurch of something called Consumers International.

I don't know about you but until today I'd never heard of Luke but a simple search on Google reveals the following:

Luke holds overall responsibility for CI's stakeholder relations, networking initiatives, digital media and publishing. He also oversees CI Member and Supporter value, and is leading plans for CI's next World Congress in Montreal, 2015, which will explore the future of consumer justice and protection.

Luke has been working in the field of consumer rights for nearly 10 years and previously worked in corporate communications and as a journalist in Africa and Europe.

His interests include sustainability, CSR, access to knowledge and consumer rights in the digital age. Luke has also written and produced several documentary films for the consumer rights movement, available on the CI YouTube channel.

What fascinates me about Consumers International, and Luke's potted biography, are the repeated references to "consumer rights".

I'm not against some degree of regulation and I think most of us would agree consumers should be educated about the health risks of tobacco, alcohol and certain types of food.

Likewise we should be given as much information as possible so we can make informed decisions about what we eat, drink and inhale.

But these proposals go far beyond protecting the consumer.

Clearly, when Luke Upchurch and Consumers International talk about "consumer rights", they have no interest in freedom of choice or personal responsibility. Yet those concepts are fundamental to a free society.

Apparently there's a "consumer rights movement" and Luke is one of its champions. Well, I'm a consumer and Luke – who is based in London – doesn't speak for me or, I'm prepared to guess, millions of other consumers.

That's why, later this year, Forest will launch a new campaign, Action On Consumer Choice.

In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, you can follow us on Twitter. Click here.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

I have heard about Consumers International and indeed approached them for funding to support tobacco consumers who feared they would be discriminated against under plain packaging with the theft of consumer rights to brand recognition, price comparison and product info such as nicotine and tar content which would be lost under PP. I wanted to sue the Govt as a consumer for the theft of these rights if this madness went ahead.

CI was interested in helping, went off to find out if such funding would be possible, then came back and said they couldn't help because they thought tobacco consumers should have no rights and they had, indeed, campaigned with others to force the FCTC on adult consumers who they believe should be forced to quit (for our own good of course as we are clearly too stupid to think properly)

They are not a consumers rights org - they are a mouthpiece or sock puppet for puritans, anti-smokers, phobics, and obsessives who are scared of the things that we legitimately consume.

Education is not enough for this sort. They want regulation, regulation, and regulation (which they want to be paid to regulate of course) until consumers have no rights to anything except what they are forced to take on board by those like the CI who feel they are superior to us lesser consumers.

All consumers are equal except some are more equal than others.