This Morning and the war on tobacco
Friday, March 13, 2015 at 8:52 I was asked yesterday if I was available to appear, this morning, on ITV's This Morning.
They wanted to discuss the issues raised by a Press Association report, 'Experts call for tobacco-free world'
Sadly I had to decline the offer of sharing a sofa with Philip and Holly or Eamonn and Ruth because I'm travelling to Glasgow (more on that later) and as I keep telling people, I can't do everything!!
Instead I suggested some alternative commentators (the usual suspects) and in response to a further query about plain packaging and the war on tobacco I sent them this note:
1. Smoke-free world only feasible if governments introduce severe restrictions/penalties on smoking that would be more akin to a totalitarian regime (ie incompatible with a liberal democracy).
2. As long as tobacco remains a legal product smokers must be allowed to smoke somewhere - outdoor public places, for example, and at home – without harassment or penalty.
3. Plain packaging is gesture politics - no evidence it will work, children don't start smoking because of packaging but other factors (peer pressure, influence of family members etc). The policy is hugely patronising. All adults and most teenagers are well aware of the health risks of smoking. We hear nothing else, day after day after day. Standardised packaging treats adults like teenagers and teenagers like idiots.
4. War on tobacco has become ridiculous - a comprehensive indoor smoking ban that doesn't allow for a designated smoking room in a single pub or private club, display ban, standardised packaging, an increasing number of outdoor smoking bans, public information campaigns with slogans like "If you smoke you stink" - governments pandering to anti-smoking campaigners (who resemble the temperance movement of the early 20th century) are helping to create an unnecessarily intolerance society.
5. What is often lost in the debate about smoking is that millions of people smoke (10 million in the UK alone) and while some want to cut down or quit, millions enjoy smoking. They pay a huge amount in tobacco taxation (80% of the cost of a packet of cigarettes go to the government) which far outweighs the cost of treating smoking-related diseases, and they deserve greater consideration than they are given.
6. Many anti-smoking measures (eg record levels of taxation) are counter-productive, fuelling the unregulated black market.
When I spoke to them the programme was still in the planning stage so I don't know if they will do anything, or who will appear.
I'll try and find out.
Update: My TV no show (Frank Davis)
Update: The two studio guests were Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at ASH, and a smoker called Mel Fallowfield.
I've no idea where they found Mel but she did well, I thought. Quietly defiant might sum her up. Pressed, she admitted she wished she hadn't started smoking but then emphasised how much she enjoyed smoking. When did you last hear someone say that on daytime television?!
I've seen Hazel quoted online and in the papers but until today I'd neither seen nor heard her speak. I was impressed. If I was running ASH I'd use her as much as possible. She was very natural and totally devoid of the hectoring tone adopted by some of her more grim-faced colleagues!
She failed however to convince the presenters, Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, that tobacco could be banned worldwide by 2040. As Eamonn said at the start of the programme, "Never going to happen".
Reader Comments (4)
I refuse to be dictated to by any paid from tax quango and I regard politicians who tamper with privately owned intellectual property as criminals.
Why do the media refer to these fanatics as 'experts'? Worse than that they quickly upgraded them to 'leading' experts!
So, are they eminent scientists? No. Top mathematicians? No. Learned academics? No. Key opinion formers? No....... pale imitations of the late Mary Whitehouse is all they are!
They are experts in nothing, and it is misleading at best for them to described as such. If they are experts, then I must be an Emeritus Professor, because I do have expertise in the analytical tools used by these people in their junk 'studies'. But hey, who would want to listen to me - I smoke, therefore I'm scum.
Anna Gilmore is a single issue obsessive, an activist using the false flag of an academic intitution to hide her patent lack of real expertise and worldly experience.
She is merely a 'rent-a-gob' mouthpiece for an equally obsessive, fanatical and unelected minority, whose sole objective seems to be to cause maximum pain and discomfort to a large section of the world's population, whose only 'crime' is to enjoy something that those pathetic creatures personally, and irrationally, dislike.
We truly are living through horrendous times.
The only serious scientific survey into the supposed effects of passive smoking was done recently in America. This survey was done independently of either the tobacco companies or the anti smoking lobby. The survey found that there was no link between cancer and so called passive smoking. The results were written up for us non scientific types in Forbes Magazine. The scientists who undertook the survey were threatened with the pulling of their other scientific grants and pressure put on the Universities some worked at to have their academic tenure pulled unless they retreated from their findings. I also heard that some had death threats, though I cant as yet confirm that. Basically we as smokers are battling what can only be referred to as "Fag fascists" and for those that are reading this from outside the UK the term has nothing to do with the gay community.
The fact they wish to push forward their diabolical plan without first making Tobacco illegal, is an indication that they are hoping to create an "out of sight" "out of mind" underclass, they can minipulate by cruel enslaved punishment! Evile! Why does the UN and WHO care so much about the health of citizens over 65 year life spans, when children are being slaughtered by terrorists and worse. They showed such little contemptable concern for Ebola victims! Pathetic! These disgusting urchins that have risen from the depths of hell should be sent packing, right back to where they came from!