Here's my speech to the Oxford Union, in response to the proposition 'This House believes that the tobacco industry is morally reprehensible’.
A couple of sections were dropped because I was running out of time (rookie mistake) but I've included them here because they strengthen the argument:
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this side of the House fully accepts the health risks of smoking. In fact, there can’t be a sane person above the age of 16, and possibly younger, who isn’t well aware of the health risks of smoking tobacco.
Historically, as far as health is concerned, mistakes have been made on all sides. For decades most people were ignorant of the health risks including governments and the medical profession. Let’s not forget that cigarettes were once handed out to the armed forces while doctors were more than happy to promote certain brands of cigarette.
Even if it was ever true, the description of the tobacco industry as morally reprehensible is decades out of date. The tobacco industry doesn’t hide the potential health risks of smoking. On Imperial Tobacco’s website, under ‘Smoking and Health’, you will find the following:
Smoking is a cause of serious diseases in smokers, including lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema. We agree that governments and public health authorities around the world should provide clear and consistent messages about the health risks of smoking. Adults should be guided by those messages when deciding whether or not to smoke. Children should never smoke.
Similar messages are on other tobacco companies’ websites.
When the opposition talks about the tobacco industry they are talking about thousands of people, decent, honourable men and women. In Britain alone it is estimated that 5,000 people are directly employed by the industry. A further 80,000 people have jobs that depend on tobacco retailers, packaging companies, logistics and so on.
Across Africa there are hundreds of thousands of small farmers who make a living selling this "reprehensible" crop. Then there are the hundreds of factory workers who process tobacco and turn it into tobacco products. The next step is the retailers, thousands of small retailers who sell tobacco across the UK.
If people are going to make moral judgements on the industry then you are making a judgement on everyone in the tobacco chain, including government. In the UK, on average, 86 per cent of the price of a packet of cigarettes is tax. British American Tobacco alone estimates that it contributed 30 billion in excise globally last year. This is eight times the group’s profits after tax.
So let’s be clear, the biggest benefactors from smoking are governments not Big Tobacco. Governments and industry are partners in the tobacco business and governments are the senior partners.
I’m not here to represent the tobacco industry, and I will come on to their absence later, but I do want to make the following points:
One, tobacco is a legal, highly regulated product. The idea that the tobacco industry can do whatever it likes is laughable. It is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world.
Two, regardless of the health risks, what the tobacco industry manufactures and sells is a quality product that has undergone years of research and development. Compare that with the smuggled or counterfeit cigarettes widely available on the black market in Britain today. According to reports ingredients have included human excrement, asbestos, mould and dead flies.
Three, the modern tobacco industry is spending billions on the development of smokeless tobacco and other harm reduction products like e-cigarettes. Does that sound like a “morally reprehensible” industry? What is morally reprehensible and irresponsible are the policies advocated by tobacco control campaigners: extreme taxation, for example, has resulted in a black market awash with counterfeit or unregulated tobacco.
And what about the consumer, the people Forest represents? Tobacco is consumed by approximately 25 per cent of adults worldwide. In the UK 20 per cent of the adult population smoke; that’s not a small minority – that’s a fifth of the adult population. Are we seriously supposed to think ten million adults in the UK alone are in thrall to some evil, immoral industry?
Tobacco control activists are quick to accuse the tobacco industry of profiting from and feeding people’s addiction as if consenting adults have no say in the matter. Ladies and gentlemen, smoking is a lifestyle choice. No-one is arguing it’s good for you but it’s YOUR choice. Yes, it’s potentially addictive but for most people it’s a habit and there’s a big difference between habit and addiction.
Like it or not smoking brings pleasure to a great many people. The tobacco industry doesn’t create demand, it meets demand. Smoking was around long before the tobacco industry. David Hockney, one of Britain’s greatest artists, is an ardent smoker. He smokes for pleasure and to relieve stress. Hockney has attended several Forest events and I’ve never heard him blame the tobacco industry for his nicotine dependency.
Yes, there are smokers who wish they’d never started or would like to quit. But lots of people smoke because they enjoy it. It’s not something you hear very often these days because it doesn’t suit the anti-smoking zeitgeist. Hence a lot of people are “shy smokers” in the same way a lot of voters are “shy Conservatives”.
Anti-smoking campaigners argue that the tobacco industry targets children. The truth is many children like to experiment. Many will experiment with alcohol. A small minority will experiment with tobacco. It’s called growing up. You cannot blame the tobacco industry for the fact that some children choose to experiment.
Tobacco companies have also been accused of deliberately targeting women with so-called "pretty" packaging. This is not only patronising to women it’s deeply sexist. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas and a regular panellist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, had to say:
The World Health Organisation once accused tobacco companies of “exploiting women’s struggle for equal rights by creating the impression that tobacco makes women confident … more in control of their destiny”. What a cheek. It’s the public health brigade who deny women the right to control our lives, by campaigns aimed at limiting our free choices by regimenting us all into dull, miserablist conformity.
If the tobacco industry is morally reprehensible what about other industries – food and drink, for example? Drinking alcohol can lead to alcoholism; it can lead to binge drinking. Who’s responsible, the manufacturer or the consumer? Sugary drinks and convenience food can lead, we are told, to obesity. Again, who’s “morally” responsible, the manufacturer or the consumer?
And that’s the problem. Tobacco control is no longer about public health. It’s a moral crusade, like the old temperance movement. We’re far too quick to pass moral judgements on people and even industries we don’t agree with. Disagree by all means but what makes the tobacco control industry morally superior to those of us who believe in freedom of choice and personal responsibility?
In my experience most of the attacks on the tobacco industry have nothing to do with health. It’s politics, pure and simple. In Britain most of the campaigners who attack the tobacco industry work in the public sector, or their campaign group is funded with public money, our money. They represent a new form of socialism – lifestyle socialism – and the enemy is big business.
I mentioned the absence of the tobacco industry from tonight’s debate. I have no quarrel with the Union because I know they invited a representative of Imperial Tobacco to take part. However, as readers of Cherwell [the Oxford student newspaper] will know, the Union came under enormous pressure to withdraw that invitation.
Dr Vaughan Rees, a lecturer at Harvard University commented, “The nature of the debate itself is deeply disturbing. The tobacco industry has a history of engaging in deceptive behaviour to further their interests while improving their public image. More recently, they have attempted to adopt principles of ‘corporate social responsibility’ and I see this debate as part of that effort.”
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the fake charity Action on Smoking and Health, said: “The tobacco industry truly is morally reprehensible and I find it hard to believe that any students with half a brain could come to any other conclusion.”
So there you are, ladies and gentlemen, God has spoken. If you vote against this motion tonight you only have half a brain.
What is morally reprehensible is not the fact that the tobacco industry wanted to engage with young adults and have a serious debate, it’s the fact that the tobacco control industry, represented by our opponents here tonight, regularly tries to ‘no platform’ a legitimate industry from defending itself both in public and in a private.
Ladies and gentlemen, the underlying assumption of the motion is that the tobacco industry has huge power. I would suggest that after 15 years of almost constant regulation – bans on tobacco advertising and sponsorship, the prohibition of smoking in the workplace including every pub and private members’ club, a ban on tobacco vending machines, a ban on the display of tobacco in shops, a ban on smoking in private vehicles carrying children and, most recently, a ban on branding, all the power lies in the hands of the modern temperance movement.
I urge you to reject this motion, reject paternalism, reject censorship, and vote for freedom of choice and personal responsibility.
(See also my previous post, Warning: this post contains a gratuitous reference to Jimmy Savile.)