Politics, power and perception
Friday, October 28, 2016 at 14:24 Apologies for the lack of posts this week. I've been on a short break.
We began with a couple of nights in Harrogate then drove up to Glasgow.
When visiting Harrogate it's usual to visit Betty's Tea Rooms but I'm no longer prepared to queue outside for a cup of tea and a scone, or even something more substantial, when I've been there several times before.
Instead I'd recommend Weetons for breakfast and for dinner you could do much worse than dine at an impressive Turkish-run restaurant called Istanbul.
In Glasgow we visited my mother-in-law and watched the first UK screening of the pro-vaping documentary A Billion Lives. As soon as I get a moment I'll post a review here.
In the meantime I'm amused to see that ASH Scotland are a bit discombobulated by our Smokers' Survey. Funded by Forest, the survey is being undertaken by the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow.
CSUR devised the questions and will analyse the responses (over 600 to date) but the survey seems to have touched a nerve because earlier today ASH Scotland posted a rather confused little piece on their blog.
The gist of the article – and subsequent tweets – is that smokers who support Forest aren't representative of "smokers as a whole".
In response we pointed out that the survey is designed, quite openly, to give a voice to smokers whose opinions are routinely ignored by anti-smoking lobby groups like ASH Scotland.
Furthermore, what on earth do they mean by "smokers as a whole"? Smokers are individuals (remember them?) with a wide range of opinions on many issues, including smoking.
"Millions of adults enjoy smoking," we tweeted. "Some want to quit. Many don't. Sorry if that doesn't fit your prohibitionist agenda."
Anyway, it's instructive to see a state-funded tobacco control group trying to belittle and undermine the views of a substantial number of smokers even before the CSUR report has been published.
Once again it's a power trip. Tobacco control is allowed to commission or fund research (often with the help of public money) but if anyone else invades what they consider to be their exclusive territory the gloves are off.
Oh, and woe betide anyone who challenges popular perceptions about smoking and smokers that tobacco control has spent decades (and a small fortune) nurturing and developing.
If you have a moment you might like to pop over to their blog and add a comment of your own. Let me know if they publish it.
See The “smokers survey” that can’t tell us anything about “smokers” (ASH Scotland).
The survey is designed to give a voice to smokers whose opinions are routinely ignored by anti-smoking lobby groups such as @ASHScotland.
— Forest (@Forest_Smoking) October 28, 2016
You ARE going to publish comments on this post, aren't you? Nothing yet. Why the delay? @ASHScotland https://t.co/cjhEKxhHow
— Forest (@Forest_Smoking) October 28, 2016
Reader Comments (6)
I am loving the panic among the smokerphobic quangos like ASH. They really don't want the smoker's voice to be heard.
What assurances can Forest give that antismoker astroturfers will be identified. No doubt the dishonest ASH and its myriad of supporting bullies will do the survey pretending to be "poor pathetic addicts" who 'hate" smoking and want to be saved by those same orgs.
You know it is going to happen. ASH will pervert the results of the survey anyway they can. Lying, scheming and manipulating is second nature to that lot.
Having just read the Twitter thread, the hypocrisy of ASH is sickening. We are only a group when they say things like all smokers stink, all smokers are pathetic addicts, if YOU smoke you stink, and the list goes on.
When genuine smokers angry at the way their views and voice has been stolen and manipulated by ASH, they now demand you do what they never do and refer the results as those of "some" smokers.
Are they dense. Talk about throwing the dummy out. It looks like that discredited political quango is run by a group of toddlers.
The “smokers survey” that can’t tell us anything about “smokers” (ASH Scotland)
The telephone survey that couldn't tell us anything about the public-as-a-whole's desire for a total smoking ban.
"The survey was conducted by BMRB International using the BMRB Access Omnibus (telephone) survey between 20-22 January 2006. It involved 831 adults aged 16+ in England."
And was claimed as representative of the views of the whole country.
ASH Director Deborah Arnott commented:
“The message to MPs could not be clearer. The public wants smokefree legislation. They want it in England, just as they do in Scotland, Wales and in Northern Ireland.
http://ash.org.uk/media-and-news/press-releases-media-and-news/new-poll-shows-public-back-health-select-committee-amendment-on-smokefree-law/
Reported as –
ASH poll shows public support full smoking ban
31 January, 2006
http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Legal/Legislation/ASH-poll-shows-public-support-full-smoking-ban
To paraphrase ASH Scotland:
"The people reached by these requests will not represent the general population , but instead the small sub-set of anti-smokers who engage with ASH and/or other anti-smoking regulation interests and who feel motivated to complete a survey distributed by those interests."
The Weetons menus look lovely. After being a loyal customer of Betty's for many years, I've boycotted them for two years since I found out that, as a smoker, I wasn't welcome at one of their shop's outdoor tables and the maitre d was positively rude about it.
I'd have to respond to that ASH statement that, similarly, ASH do not represent non-smokers "as a whole". I have never smoked in my life, and never intend to, but like all fair-minded non-smokers I wish to distance myself from their guff.
In the days when smoking in workplaces at break-times was legal and common I never had the slightest problem reaching some reasonable accommodation with smoking colleagues - generally that one or t'other of us sat nearest the door or open window. This is hardly rocket science. Mind you, speaking as one who has taught these things, ASH's research fails as even elementary SOCIAL science!
I find it amazing that ASH Scotland very notion of a survey even before its results are published. What do they fear?
Is it possible they manipulated their surveys in the past and can't fathom that others wouldn't do the same?
Or perhaps they fear dissent and open discourse about social control issues preferring to be the sole absolute voice and arbiter of opinion. After all tobacco control and public health as a whole eschew transparency and only tolerate voices that speak from an approved script developed behind closed doors.