Aaron Biebert, director of A Billion Lives, has replied to my previous post.
You can read his response in the comments here, but what astounded me was his claim that:
The movement to help people who want to quit smoking switch to something safer is called the Anti-Smoking movement.
That was news to me. As Paul McNamara commented:
No it is not, Aaron, it is called Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR). I have never in my life associated any anti-smoking movement that was anything other than hostile to smokers.
"I respect smokers and their choice."
Then please respect the feelings of smokers when they tell you that anti-smoking is not an appropriate name.
Exactly right, Paul.
To be fair to Aaron, at least he’s prepared to engage with us (and always has been), unlike many others I could mention. I respect him for that, so here’s my own response to his comment:
Aaron, I have never heard the term ‘anti-smoking movement’ used in the context you describe. As Paul says, what you are talking about is tobacco harm reduction.
You may think that THR and anti-smoking are the same thing but they are very different, or should be. THR informs, educates and encourages smokers to switch. It doesn’t (or shouldn’t) seek to coerce smokers to switch or quit or denormalise a substantial part of the population.
Like most readers of this blog I support tobacco harm reduction but I’m not anti-smoking (or anti-smoker). THR is about choice - “extending choice” as British American Tobacco rightly puts it. The anti-smoking movement, in contrast, doesn’t believe in choice.
Anti-smoking campaigners want to restrict and ultimately ban the sale of combustible tobacco and smoking accessories. They support discrimination, regressive taxation, creeping prohibition and other policies designed to force smokers to give up.
The anti-smoking movement is in denial about the pleasure many smokers get from smoking. I suspect many anti-smokers are also in denial about the pleasure of vaping. In their eyes it's a smoking cessation tool not a device for the long-term recreational consumption of nicotine.
As far as the anti-smoking movement is concerned most smokers (and even vapers) are addicts, victims of Big Tobacco. The anti-smoking industry exaggerates and distorts scientific evidence (on secondhand smoke, for example) with no thought for the negative impact that has had on the lives of smokers, their families and even their non-smoking peers.
THR has belatedly been embraced by anti-smoking campaigners, which may explain your confusion. That's no excuse though for allying yourself with the the "anti-smoking movement", parts of which you yourself attempted to expose as “corrupt” in A Billion Lives.
Wearing both my personal and Forest hats I will happily work with and support those who promote THR but as soon as THR advocates cross the line and embrace the language and endgame of the anti-smoking industry (a 'smoke free' world run by serial prohibitionists), they become our enemy. Anyone who promotes an anti-smoking agenda will be called to account because the war on smoking - and those who enjoy smoking and don’t want to quit - is unacceptable in a free and tolerant society.
As I have written several times on this blog, I respected the hard work and commitment with which you promoted A Billion Lives. In the UK I was one of your most active cheerleaders, even though I had reservations about the film that were partly confirmed when I saw it. I did so on the grounds that, tendentious title aside, it was an honest if laboured attempt to promote tobacco harm reduction and expose corruption within government and NGOs.
Now you have declared yourself “very proud” to be part of the “anti-smoking movement” you have crossed the line I referred to above. You may have done it in ignorance of what “anti-smoking” truly means, but I find that hard to believe.
When you started on your 'journey' I considered you slightly naive and gave you the benefit of the doubt. I can no longer do that. Anti-smoking is the antithesis of individual choice and personal responsibility. The “anti-smoking movement”, like the temperance movement before it, is puritanical and illiberal.
Some anti-smoking campaigners may be well-meaning but the outcome of their fanaticism is ultimately detrimental to society because it breeds intolerance.
To say you are part of the “anti-smoking movement” because “pro-choice movement” was already taken is a pathetic cop-out. The “anti-smoking movement” has existed for centuries. In its more organised public health form it's been with us for decades, if not the best part of a century, far longer than the “pro-choice movement”.
As I've explained, the pro-choice movement includes support for tobacco harm reduction but you've chosen to be part of the anti-smoking movement whose endgame is a ‘smoke free’ and probably nicotine-free world.
If you are now “proud” to be part of a movement that includes many of the NGOs and governments you previously sought to condemn as corrupt, good luck to you, but it strikes me as a betrayal of the message you were trying to communicate in your film.
You’re not the first and you won’t be the last THR evangelist to nail their colours to the anti-smoking mast but don’t insult our intelligence by reinventing the meaning of “anti-smoking movement” after we've called you out.
You may be a little ingenuous but you're not stupid, and nor are we.