Tasmania can go to hell
Monday, December 21, 2015 at 21:41 Currently in Glasgow where it is extremely wet and windy.
At eleven o'clock this morning I was at BBC Scotland's impressive HQ overlooking the Clyde at Pacific Quay.
I was there to record an interview about plain packaging for You and Yours (Radio 4). I was under the impression there was going to be a report in today's programme but after we finished they told me it won't be broadcast until New Year's Eve.
While I was there I got a request for a comment on whether vaping should be allowed in hospital grounds. I'm sure you can guess my response so I'll wait and link to the report if and when it's published online.
Media request number three came via another phone call just after lunch. BBC Three Counties radio wanted me on their drive time programme to discuss the proposal to raise the smoking age in Tasmania from 21 to 25.
I'm sure we'll hear more of this absurd idea (why should adults aged 18-24 be discriminated against on such an arbitrary basis?) but on this occasion the item got dropped because of a shocking story that took place in the station's own region.
"In the circumstances," the producer told me, "it doesn't seem appropriate to talk about smoking."
What I think he was saying was that, compared to an horrific story involving the torture and death of a teenage girl, the issue of smoking was unimportant.
That's not what public health campaigners want to hear, of course. They want smoking cessation to be headline news, day after day.
On this occasion I was more than happy to take a back seat. Tasmania can go to hell.
Reader Comments (1)
Every time I have had a camera crew at my house they always ask me to roll up and smoke for the film. Every time I ask them if they are not scared that my "passive" smoke would kill, maim or harm them. Every time they shrug it off because they don't actually believe that SHS kills, maims or harms so I wonder why they keep on pushing what they know and feel to be a lie.
They don't always like smoking or the smell of it so personal preferences mean they will con the public into believing something could harm them which they admit they know can't harm.
I do wish we could have some honesty from this new media. It is losing credibility.